by Steven Pinker
Pinker applies cognitive science and modern linguistics to prose style, arguing that good writing is 'classic style' - treating the reader as an equal looking at the world together. He replaces outdated grammar superstitions with evidence-based rules grounded in how minds actually process sentences.
In this collection, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century references 4 other books.
It draws on The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works and Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Scroll down to read the exact passages where other authors reference this book and what they say about it.
The books Pinker references and why each one mattered to the argument.
Pinker builds the book's cognitive foundations on his own Language Instinct, using its account of grammar-as-mental-faculty to argue that clear prose aligns with the mind's parsing machinery
Pinker draws on How the Mind Works to explain why readers struggle with syntactic heaviness and to ground style rules in memory and attention constraints
Pinker cites Kahneman on the 'curse of knowledge' as the chief cause of bad writing - experts forget what non-experts don't know, a direct application of Kahneman's research on intuitive judgement
Pinker extends The Blank Slate's argument that many common-sense beliefs are empirically wrong to debunk zombie grammar rules that persist without evidence
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How ideas flow through the citation network. Ancestors are books this title builds on; descendants are books that build on it.
Books from completely different categories that share citation overlap with this one. These are the reads you would not find by browsing a single shelf.
Enlightenment Now
Steven Pinker
The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better
Will Storr
The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children
Alison Gopnik
Atomic Habits
James Clear
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
Tools of Titans
Tim Ferriss
Books with the highest citation overlap within the same categories.
Enlightenment Now
Steven Pinker
2 shared citations
Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
Lisa Cron
2 shared citationsThe Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better
Will Storr
2 shared citationsThe Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children
Alison Gopnik
2 shared citationsAtomic Habits
James Clear
1 shared citationSapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
1 shared citationThis book and its direct connections. Hover a node to see its title, click to visit.
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